Photography platform Snappr has emerged out of beta stage with $500,000 in an oversubscribed round from a range of private investors. The startup will now be focusing on growing the platform in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Over the course of the 18 months I worked at Newspoll, the market research organisation behind The Australian newspaper’s fortnightly political opinion poll, I saw three different Prime Ministers in office, with those very opinion polls I was helping to conduct leading to the demise of two of them. But while opinion polls have developed an extraordinary power in Australian politics, their accuracy is questionable.